The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated changes in health care across the nation. Particularly, infection prevention programs have been subjected to pressures and increased responsibilities with no expansion in support. In addition, there is a rapid trend for health systems to merge to ensure long term sustainability. Based on our experience leading infection prevention at one of the largest health systems in the United States, we outline how systems can provide and increase capacity to optimize and enhance the hospital level infection prevention programs and outcomes. In this commentary, “Ten Pillars for the Expansion of Health System Infection Prevention Capacity” we offer 10 categories of what we have found to establish a successful and functioning infection prevention program. The pillars to support the infection prevention programs focus on structure, processes, empowerment, and partnerships, and the elements and strategies that comprise them.

In 2022, highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) A(H5N1) virus clade 2.3.4.4b became enzootic and caused mass mortality in Sandwich Tern Thalasseus sandvicensis and other seabird species across north-western Europe. We present data on the characteristics of the spread of the virus between and within breeding colonies and the number of dead adult Sandwich Terns recorded at breeding sites throughout north-western Europe. Within two months of the first reported mortalities, 20,531 adult Sandwich Terns were found dead, which is >17% of the total north-western European breeding population. This is probably an under-representation of total mortality, as many carcasses are likely to have gone unnoticed and unreported. Within affected colonies, almost all chicks died. After the peak of the outbreak, in a colony established by late breeders, 25.7% of tested adults showed immunity to HPAI subtype H5. Removal of carcasses was associated with lower levels of mortality at affected colonies. More research on the sources and modes of transmission, incubation times, effective containment, and immunity is urgently needed to combat this major threat for colonial seabirds.

The Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) theory models the effective specific surface area and water content of solids as a function of the relative vapor pressure of water. A modified form of the BET equation has been used successfully to model water activity in concentrated electrolyte solutions as a function of electrolyte concentration. This modified form, referred to here as the Stokes-Robinson BET model, is based on the electrolyte molality rather than on the mass of solute sorbed. The present study evaluates the Stokes-Robinson form of the BET equation to model water-sorption data on two smectites with different layer charges. One smectite was saturated with Na+ and another with Na+, Ca2+, or Mg2+. These results are compared to the Stokes-Robinson BET results of aqueous electrolyte solutions. Given published data on cation exchange capacities and water-vapor sorption isotherms for various clays, the molality of the aqueous phase in contact with the clay surface is calculated and related to water activity. The Stokes-Robinson BET model was found to describe accurately the water activity as a function of cation molality below water activities of 0.5 for the smectites. Good relative agreement was obtained between the number of water binding sites predicted by the model and the experimental data reported in the literature for other smectites. Water molecules were found to have a significantly greater affinity for montmorillonite than electrolyte solutions with the same cation molality as the montmorillonite interlayer. This modified BET approach simplifies water-activity modeling in highly saline environments because the same equation can be used for both the liquid- and mineral-surface phases.

The clinical field of depression and other mood disorders is characterised by the vast heterogeneity between those who present for care, and the highly variable degree of response to the range of psychological, pharmacological and physical treatments currently provided. These individual differences likely have a genetic component, and leveraging genetic risk is appealing because genetic risk factors point to causality. The possibility that individual genotyping at entry to health care may be a key way forward is worthy of discussion (Torkamani et al., 2018).

The coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has led to the irrational use of drugs in the absence of clinical management guidelines. Access to individual participant data (IPD) from clinical trials aids the evidence synthesis approaches. We undertook a rapid review to infer IPD sharing intentions based on data availability statements by the principal investigators (PIs) of drug and vaccine trials in the context of COVID-19.

Searches were conducted on PubMed (NCBI). We considered randomized controlled trial (RCT) publications from January 1, 2020, to October 31, 2021. IPD sharing intentions were inferred based on the data availability statements in the full-text manuscript publications. We included 180 articles. Of these, 81.7% (147/180) of the publications have arrived from the findings of the RCTs alone, 12.8% (23/180) of the publications were protocol publications alone, and 5.6% (10/180) of the RCTs had both published protocol and publication from the trial findings. We have reported IPD sharing intentions separately in RCT protocol publications (n = 23 + 10) and publications from RCT findings (n = 147 + 10). Among RCT protocol publications, one-third (11/33) of the PIs intended to share IPD. In fact, over half of the PIs (52.2%, 82/157) in their published RCT findings intended to share IPD. However, information to share about IPD was missing for 57.6% (19/33) of RCT protocols and 38.2% (60/157) of published RCT findings.

Stakeholders must work together to ensure that overarching factors, such as legislation that governs clinical trial practices, are streamlined to bolster IPD sharing mechanisms.

We conducted an online survey of weed scientists in the United States and Canada to (1) identify research topics perceived to be important for advancing weed science in the next 5 to 10 years and (2) gain insight into potential gaps in current expertise and funding sources needed to address those priorities. Respondents were asked to prioritize nine broad research areas, as well as 5 to 10 subcategories within each of the broad areas. We received 475 responses, with the majority affiliated with academic institutions (55%) and working in cash crop (agronomic or horticultural) study systems (69%). Results from this survey provide valuable discussion points for policy makers, funding agencies, and academic institutions when allocating resources for weed science research. Notably, our survey reveals a strong prioritization of Cultural and Preventative Weed Management (CPWM) as well as the emerging area of Precision Weed Management and Robotics (PWMR). Although Herbicides remain a high-priority research area, continuing challenges necessitating integrated, nonchemical tactics (e.g., herbicide resistance) and emerging opportunities (e.g., robotics) are reflected in our survey results. Despite previous calls for greater understanding and application of weed biology and ecology in weed research, as well as recent calls for greater integration of social science perspectives to address weed management challenges, these areas were ranked considerably lower than those focused more directly on weed management. Our survey also identified a potential mismatch between research priorities and expertise in several areas, including CPWM, PWMR, and Weed Genomics, suggesting that these topics should be prime targets for expanded training and collaboration. Finally, our survey suggests an increasing reliance on private sector funding for research, raising concerns about our discipline’s capacity to address important research priority areas that lack clear private sector incentives for investment.

Over the past 2 decades, several categorizations have been proposed for the abnormalities of the aortic root. These schemes have mostly been devoid of input from specialists of congenital cardiac disease. The aim of this review is to provide a classification, from the perspective of these specialists, based on an understanding of normal and abnormal morphogenesis and anatomy, with emphasis placed on the features of clinical and surgical relevance. We contend that the description of the congenitally malformed aortic root is simplified when approached in a fashion that recognizes the normal root to be made up of 3 leaflets, supported by their own sinuses, with the sinuses themselves separated by the interleaflet triangles. The malformed root, usually found in the setting of 3 sinuses, can also be found with 2 sinuses, and very rarely with 4 sinuses. This permits description of trisinuate, bisinuate, and quadrisinuate variants, respectively. This feature then provides the basis for classification of the anatomical and functional number of leaflets present. By offering standardized terms and definitions, we submit that our classification will be suitable for those working in all cardiac specialties, whether pediatric or adult. It is of equal value in the settings of acquired or congenital cardiac disease. Our recommendations will serve to amend and/or add to the existing International Paediatric and Congenital Cardiac Code, along with the Eleventh iteration of the International Classification of Diseases provided by the World Health Organization.

It is axiomatic that high-risk activism requires solidarity if social movements are to have success in struggles against powerful adversaries. However, there is little research that attempts to gauge the impact of various types, limits, or breakdown of solidarity directly and systematically. Drawing from historical political economy, cultures of class formation, and social movement outcome literatures, we address the question of solidarity’s impact across dimensions and at various levels of scale (i.e., at the point of production or firm level, local community, and wider society) by analyzing the outcomes of more than 4,500 strikes during the late-nineteenth-century rise of US industrial capitalism. We find that while strike solidarity at the point of production is necessary, it is not sufficient for success. Disruption costs that strikers seek to impose to gain leverage can be significantly reduced by the countertactic of hiring strikebreaking replacement workers recruited from the local community or imported from beyond. We also find that the urban regime of strike policing matters by moderating the impact of strikebreakers. The most powerful predictor of strike outcomes is employer use of replacement workers, signaling the key to undermining working-class strike solidarity directly pits the working class against itself. Intraclass solidarity is necessary for the success in interclass struggle but needs to extend beyond the struck firm implicating the importance of solidarity of the surrounding community and wider social factory. We discuss the implications of these findings for understanding the historic formation of the US labor movement and its present predicament.

The myotendinous junction (MTJ) is a highly specialized region of the locomotor apparatus. Here, we investigated the ultrastructural and molecular effects in the MTJ region after static stretching prior to the ladder-based resistance training. Thirty-two male, 60-day old Wistar rats were divided into four groups: Sedentary, Resistance Training, Stretching, and Stretching-Resistance Training. The gastrocnemius muscle was processed for transmission electron microscopy techniques and Western blot assay. We observed that the static stretching prior to the ladder-based resistance training increased the MTJ components, the fibroblast growth factor (FGF)-2 and FGF-6 protein expression. Also, we demonstrated the lower transforming growth factor expression and no difference in the lysyl oxidase expression after combined training. The MTJ alterations in response to combined training demonstrate adaptive mechanisms which can be used for the prescription or development of methods to reduce or prevent injuries in humans and promote the myotendinous interface benefit.

Advancements in high content image analysis have led to an increase in the adoption of these techniques in basic science and clinical research. High-throughput approaches to imaging and image analysis require minimal user interventions, circumventing the often prohibitively time-consuming and unreliable standard manual analysis. In this study, we demonstrate how high content imaging (HCI) techniques, in combination with high content analysis (HCA), can be paired with more traditional manual analysis to quantify both micro- and macro-level features of biopsied tissue sections. High-resolution, full-color images of stained tissue were acquired and stitched together to reconstruct the entire tissue section, which enabled analyses that required accurate identification of a given region's location within the tissue section. A custom region of interest grid was generated that followed the curvature of the tissue. The composite images were used in two separate analyses: tissue layer thickness as a macro-level approach, and nuclei density as a micro-level approach. Ultimately, the flexibility of the HCI and HCA methodologies used in this study allowed for complex analysis of tissue that would not have been otherwise feasible.